MARCH 19TH

POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK

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— Benjamin Franklin,1744

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Clothing of 18th
Century England - page one of three - 1700 to 17351700-1705

The beginning of the century found the dress
of Charles II's last years only slightly
modified by the intervening reigns. James introduced no innovations,
and the slight Dutch influence due to William III only served
to give to dress a certain stiffness and sombreness in keeping
with the temperament of a King who cared nothing for the elegancies
of life. Queen Anne, with whom the century opened, brought neither
gaiety nor ostentation to a Court singularly lacking in both,
and the dress of her period followed the rigid form of her predecessors.
The main lines of costume, however, as it was to exist for nearly
a century, were already decided, and this costume had certain
strong characteristics which must be briefly considered.

The most remarkable of such characteristics
is the wig. Wigs were worn in France very early in the seventeenth
century, but did not reach England until the Restoration. Charles
II wore a voluminous black wig, and throughout his reign the
wig fell on each side of the face with the ends drooping on to
the chest. This proved so inconvenient, especially for soldiers,
that the fashion arose of tying the hair back with a ribbon,
and ultimately, of enclosing it at the back in a silk bag. But
this, at the opening of the century, was still in the future.
The cost of wigs was enormous, as much as £30 being frequently
paid for a full wig of real hair. When one considers that this
must have been the equivalent of at least £300 of our money,
it is not surprising that footpads should make a first snatch
at their victims' wigs.

Men's coats were so long that they almost
concealed the breeches, and the, waistcoats were almost as long
as the coats. Shoe-buckles came in with William III, and were
at first very small. They soon grew larger, and were often ornamented
with jewels.

Women's dress was somewhat severe, although
it had certain elements of informality. The small laced apron
was much worn, even on important occasions. Below it was the
flowered petticoat, much more important than the skirt, which
was frequently drawn back in bunches or folds. The bodice of
the dress, although cut low, was very stiff.

1705
-1710

The most striking thing about female costume
at the beginning of the eighteenth century was the
height of the head-dress. The fashion started in France when
Mademoiselle Fontange, the King's mistress, finding her hair
disordered while out hunting, tied it up with a ribbon. The fashion
was followed, and formalised, so that soon an elaborate high
lace cap stood on the women's heads, the hair being piled up
in front and adorned with a wire frame covered with lace and
ribbons. The Fontange head-dress was called a "commode"
in England, and was seen as early as the end of James II's reign.
It lasted throughout the reign of William and Mary, and, at the
accession of Queen Anne, rose even higher. The lace used was
very costly, for there was as yet no substitute for the real
lace of Brussels and Mechlin except gauze, which did not give
the same effect.

Men's hair was cropped very close, and in
private the heavy full-bottomed wig was frequently discarded,
an embroidered cap being worn in its place. Poets and painters
are frequently represented in this curious negligé. Waistcoats
were still excessively long, and had to be left unbuttoned at
the bottom in order to allow freedom to the limbs. Shirts were
made of fine white linen, with elaborate lace frills down the
front and at the wrists. The cravat, which was also of lace,
was one of the most costly parts of the costume. The sword was,
of course, worn by all gentlemen, and had not yet assumed the
dainty proportions of the dress-sword later in the century -
a sword of the same size and shape as that which survives to-day
in Court dress. Small boys did not wear a wig, but kept their
own hair long in a kind of curly mop.

1700-1710

The neckcloth, or
cravat, had been worn by German troops as early as 1640, and,
soon after the beginning of the new century, began to replace
the lace collar in general use. It consisted of a strip of white
material about a foot wide and a yard long, twisted round the
neck, and knotted in front. Considerable variety was practised
in the manner of tying it, and each variety had a special name.
A Steinkerk was a lace cravat tied very loosely, with the ends
passed through a buttonhole in the coat. It was so called after
the Battle of Steinkerk, where the French officers went into
action so hurriedly that they had not time to tie their cravats
properly; and the fashion was popular in England in spite of
the fact that Steinkerk was an English defeat.

The large wig was worn by the wealthy, unconfined
by any kind of ribbon or fastening, a fashion which must have
been extremely inconvenient for those whose occupations involved
rapid physical action.

The very short sleeve of Charles II's time
had given place to a longer variety, with very elaborate turned-back
cuffs, adorned with buttons and embroidery. Women's sleeves remained
almost the same for many years. They were short, reaching to
just below the elbow, and were finished with rather wide lace
ruffles. Sometimes the lace was attached to the chemisette underneath,
and not to the gown itself.

The odd habit of wearing patches on the face
lasted almost throughout the century, and patches of different
shapes and sizes were worn by women of all ages. Painting the
face was freely indulged in, and the paints used sometimes contained
chemicals very harmful to the complexion. The face was treated
with wash-balls compounded of white lead, rice, and flour, with
washes of quicksilver boiled in water, and with bismuth. This
mattered less, perhaps, because women expected to look old in
the early thirties.

1710

There is no very noticeable change in men's
attire during the first ten years of the eighteenth century.
Coats and waistcoats remained very long with large pockets in the flaps
of each. The stockings were worn outside the breeches, drawn
up over the knee, but gartered below. Stockings could be of coloured
silk - blue or scarlet - with gold or silver clocks, but youths
and poorer men wore black stockings of wool. In winter the curious
fashion was followed of wearing several pairs of stockings at
once.

In women's dress the fashions of the end of
the previous century had been but slightly modified. The corset,
which had reappeared about 1670, was worn very tight, and the
bodice of the over-dress cut to fit exactly over it. It was laced
from the bottom, with the effect of forcing the breasts upwards.
Bodices were low, and a crimped frill was added to the upper
edge - a survival from the lace collar of the previous age.

Already before the close of the seventeenth
century gowns began to be looped up at the sides into paniers,
and these paniers were superseded by hoops, which soon grew to
enormous dimensions. The hoop was not, like the crinoline, an
under-garment, but the outside petticoat itself stiffened with
whalebone. The over-gown opened in front, and the petticoat was
frequently of damask or other rich cloth., In winter petticoats
were sometimes made of ermine, but, as by their nature, they
were some little distance from the body of the wearer, they could
not have made her much warmer. Petticoat, gown, stays and cloak
could be of different colours, but it was the petticoat which
was usually embroidered and therefore formed the richest part
of the toilet.

1710-1715

In its earliest and most elaborate form the
full-bottomed wig was divided into three masses of curls, two
in front of the shoulders and one hanging down the back. Above
the forehead the hair rose into two peaks or horns, sometimes
exaggerated to grotesque proportions. However, the fashion served
to give increased height to the figure, and a grave dignity to
the face. A hat was completely unnecessary, and was often carried
in the hand, but when worn, had to be of considerable size. The
back of the head was smooth, the artificial curls forming a fringe
at the edge of the wig.

The hoop petticoat made its first appearance
in the London streets in 1711, and two English ladies, walking
in the gardens of the Tuileries in 1718, set the fashion in France.
It has been suggested that it came from Germany, from some little
Court where the great wheel farthingale known to Queen Elizabeth
and to Anne of Denmark had survived for more than a century.
The revived hoop was at its biggest in England at the end of
the other Queen Anne's reign.

The skirts of a man's coat were stiffened
with wire to make them stand out, but men soon abandoned the
attempt to compete with their wives in this particular.

Falbalas came in early in the century. These
were crimped or pleated flounces sewn horizontally round the
skirt, and were sometimes of a different material. This was not
true of volants or wide ruffles, which were assumed to be part
of the original dress.

The English corset was in general laced at
the back, and the whalebone stiffening went right round the body
and across the breast. The top edge was stiffened with a stout
wire, and in the lining in front a small pocket was contrived
to hold sachets of fragrant herbs. The French corset continued
to be laced up the front.

1715

It is often assumed that dress in the eighteenth
century was very much more formal than it is to-day. In reality
it was much less so, in the sense that
considerably greater variety was permitted to individual taste,
and that costume had not yet crystallised, as it were, into various
accepted forms for different occasions and different occupations.
An eighteenth-century gentleman would have been astonished at
the uniformity of men's evening-dress, and even at the comparative
uniformity of their everyday attire. Pages were not yet dressed
in buttons, nor Eton boys in short coats and white collars. If
lawyers wore full-bottomed wigs, so did every other dignified
man. Lackeys wore the costume of the day with certain modifications;
there was even a certain amount of liberty allowed in officers
uniforms, and a definitely naval costume had not yet been invented.
In particular, Court dress was simply the dress of the day, a
little more elaborate and a little more costly.

Immense numbers of diamonds were worn both
by men and women, for since the Dutch improvements in diamond
cutting at the beginning of the century, the stones could be
made to present a much more brilliant effect than formerly. Diamonds
were often borrowed or even hired for important occasions, such
as Courts and weddings. The somewhat rigid bodice-fronts of this
period lent themselves to the display of precious stones, and
the stomacher was frequently embroidered all over with them,
or else heavily laced with gold thread. Peers and Knights of
the Garter and other orders wore their decorations even in the
street, so that a man's rank could be easily recognised. We are
still far from the days when it is considered bad form to wear
even a miniature military ribbon. In this sense the dress of
the eighteenth century was very formal; and although the middle
classes tried to ape the nobility, the high cost of the materials
worn compelled them to keep at a respectful distance.

1710-1720

The fashion for wearing the full-bottomed
wig divided into three masses of curls did not last very long,
owing to the growing consciousness of its inconvenience, even
among the leisured. Later, the wig was of equal length all round,
but sometimes the portion at the back was divided into two, the
ends being tied with ribbons. This fashion persisted among old
men until about 1760, but in general wigs became smaller about
1720, and continued to diminish in size throughout the century.

Cuffs were still large and sometimes heavily
embroidered, but disappeared from hunting and riding coats. Riding
was also responsible for a modification of the coat-tails. These
were buttoned back, and soon became merely ornamental, i.e. the
revers were formalised as part of the decoration of the coat,
thus making the wider opening at the front of the coat permanent.
The last vestige of this buttoning back is to be seen in the
two black buttons in the small of the back of a modern morning
or evening coat and in the more elaborate arrangement of buttons
on the back lower edge of a soldier's tunic.

The most notable change in female attire is
a lowering of the head-dress. On the disappearance of the "commode"
or Fontange head-dress, the hair was worn in a simple, almost
negligent style, rather close to the head. This fashion lasted,
with but slight modifications, until the introduction of the
towering head-dresses typical of the seventeen-seventies. The
habit of wearing caps, however, persisted, particularly in the
middle classes. These caps were usually quite small and perched
on the top of the head, but were sometimes very rich, trimmed
with fine lace, or made of lace entirely. Servants' caps, or
the caps worn by very old ladies and peasant women, are now the
only survivals of this practice.

1720

At the beginning of the century the increased
facilities for trade with the East, due to the growing success
of the East India Company, led to the introduction
of vast quantities of Indian calicoes, which soon became very
popular. English cloth manufacturers grew alarmed, and Acts of
Parliament were passed, both by Queen Anne and George I, prohibiting
the use of calicoes, silks, etc., from India, Persia, and China.
These were, however, extensively smuggled, and Steele, in his
plea for the weavers of England, gives an interesting list of
the materials they had displaced: brilliants, pulerays, antherines,
bombazines, satinets, chiverets, oraguellas, grazetts (flowered
and plain), footworks, coloured crapes (although most crape was
made in Italy and was regarded by rigid Protestants as Popish),
damasks, and worsted tammy draughts.

A wide over-dress came into fashion about
this period. It hung loose from the shoulders and could be fastened
down the front with bows of ribbon. This, which was called a
contouche, was the equivalent of the modern peignoir, and at
first was worn only in the house as a morning-dress, but soon
became so popular that it appeared everywhere in the street.
It could be made of silk, wool, or taffeta and sometimes of light
materials, such as gauze or muslin, worn over an under-dress
of a contrasting colour. Its effect was one of charming negligence
in attire, and is typical of the change which was taking place,
less noticeably in England than in France, from the stiff formalism
of the age of Louis XIV to the rather frivolous elegance of the
Rococo period. Men's coats were still rather sombre in hue, embroidery
being reserved for the decoration of the waistcoat, which was
often the most valuable part of the costume, unless the lace
ruffles of the shirt were exceptionally fine.

1720-1725

The seventeen-twenties
were marked by the increasing popularity of the contouche, already
described. It must not be thought, however, that the wearing
of one of these loose dresses meant the abandonment of corsets.
These formed an essential part of the under-dress, and were still
worn very tightly laced in order to give a small waist to the
figure, even when this was completely hidden by the full contouche.

Until about the year 1725, men wore on the
right shoulders of their coats a number of bows of ribbon, the
long ends of which extended to the elbows. These were a relic
of the shoulder fastening which had been used at the end of the
seventeenth century to secure the sword belt. Swords were now
worn less conspicuously and sometimes discarded altogether except
on formal occasions or for going about London by night, when
the unarmed pedestrian was at the mercy of footpads and riotous
marauders of all kinds. It was usual, therefore, to go to evening
entertainments in the company of friends or servants.

Heel-making was a separate trade, employing
a large number of hands, and this fact no doubt contributed to
the persistence of high heels. The heels even of men's shoes
were in general high, those of women extremely so. They were
made of wood and coloured. In France, red heels were a sign of
noble birth. The shape of shoes in general, even women's shoes,
was somewhat clumsy, the heels being far too small and placed
too near the middle of the instep. It would have been impossible
to walk far in such shoes, and in the house women wore slippers.

For out of doors, ladies wore a long cloak
with a hood attached to it. It was originally of scarlet cloth,
and perhaps for that reason was called a "cardinal."
It remained scarlet until the close of the century, when it became
the fashion to wear black cloaks. It is interesting to note that
the "cardinal" was the cloak worn by "Little Red
Riding Hood" in the nursery story.

1725-1730

Travelling cloaks for men were long and circular
in shape, in fact they differed
little from the chlamys of the Greeks (except that this was oblong),
or the cloaks worn by Spanish peasants to this day. The appalling
state of the roads in wet weather made high, stout boots essential,
and these were of the pattern familiar from pictures of the Restoration
period but with narrower tops, and, of course, unadorned with
lace round the upper edge. For riding and travelling, women wore
a modification of the male coat with turned-back sleeves and
cravat, but their skirts were ill- adapted for any kind of exercise.

By 1730 the re-introduced farthingale may
be said to have established itself, to last, with slight modifications,
until the French Revolution. It grew to six feet in diameter
and required an enormous quantity of stuff to cover it. At first,
hoops of osier rods or cane were used, but these were superseded
by the more reliable whalebone. The hoop was at first simply
a cage - a series of hoops of different dimensions attached to
one another by ribbons or strings at intervals round their circumference.
About 1729 it became customary to cover this cage with cloth,
with taffeta, and finally with silk, so that the hoop became
a reinforced skirt. Sometimes in summer no other skirt was worn,
and as the wearing of drawers was still very uncommon, the limbs
were naked underneath the hoop except for the stockings which
reached to just above the knee and were fastened by garters just
below it. Hoops were violently denounced from the pulpit, but
from any contest with the clergy fashion has always emerged victorious,
and they continued to be worn even by servant girls, and by countrywomen
going to market. Even the simplest négligé was
duly provided with its framework of whalebone, and it became
impossible for two women to walk abreast in the narrow streets
or to occupy a carriage together in comfort. Even the staircases
in private houses had to be provided with balusters curved outward
in order to allow for the passage of the voluminous skirts.

1720-1730

Bag-wigs were
at first worn chiefly by soldiers, and when they made their way
into civilian costume were regarded, in the beginning, as a kind
of undress. The bag was made of gummed black taffeta, with a
bow of the same material, and served to give an appearance of
neatness without much trouble. The pig-tail was almost as popular
as the bag-wig and for the same reasons of convenience. The toupet,
or hair immediately over the forehead, was often natural, the
join between the wig and the real hair being disguised by a liberal
use of powder.

About 1730 the fashion arose of leaving the
top buttons of the waistcoat unfastened in order to display the
elaborately frilled shirt. This led to a modification of the
neckcloth, which had shorter ends in order that the decorated
shirtfront might be more easily seen. Sometimes the cravat with
shorter ends was replaced by a neckcloth knotted at the back
and kept in place in front by a jewelled pin. Military men wore
two neckcloths one over the other, the under one of white muslin
and that over it of coloured silk, allowing the white of the
first to show between the folds.

Throughout the century, women's sleeves were
almost constant in length, that is to say, the material of the
dress reached just to the point of the elbow, and further length
was given by two or three frills of lace. Although the elaborate
"commode" had disappeared, smaller caps of lace were
still worn in the house by women of all ranks and all ages. The
styles of hairdressing varied considerably but within narrow
limits, the hair being kept fairly close to the head. The necks
of dresses were worn very low, in fact as low as a modern evening-dress,
except that the opening was not so deep at the back.

1730

The three-cornered hat, than which nothing
is more typical of eighteenth-century fashion, was capable of
a considerable
amount of variety. Some hats were still laced and garnished with
plumes like those of the previous epoch, but as the plume was
worn on the upper brim, now bent inwards, it only appeared as
a kind of fringe. Some hats were simply bordered with braid.
The triangular form was kept by means of a cord, passed through
holes in the brim and drawn tight round the crown, or else by
a button acting as a kind of clip at the edge of the upturned
brim. The earlier habit of festooning the hat with ribbons had
been definitely abandoned.

The accession of George II made very little
difference to costume in England. The new king, like the old,
was German, stiff in his manners and somewhat slovenly in his
habits. His Court provided no centre of influence for the caprices
of Society or the whims of fashion. Individual members of the
aristocracy wielded far more influence than the Royal Family,
and those who could afford trips to the Continent became, by
natural consequence, the arbiters of taste.

Two accessories of costume in constant use
were the snuffbox and the fan. The first was carried by every
man, of every degree, and by many ladies. The smoking of tobacco
was considered definitely "low," to be practised only
by sailors and labourers but vast quantities of the weed were
consumed in the form of snuff powder, and every elegance of decoration
was bestowed upon the boxes in which it was carried.

The fan was universal. In Queen Anne's reign
it had been very large. Later, it became less pretentious and
was decorated with painted scenes by the most able artists. Sometimes
the paintings were designed to show political opinions. The material
used was paper or, sometimes, thin white chicken skin, and the
handles could be ornamented with jewels or enamels.

1730-1735

In 1734 women's
stays were worn extremely low. The bodies of gowns were laced
up the front over a stomacher, or else stays were worn outside;
but in general there is little change in feminine costume since
the last decade.

Men's costume also remained almost static,
although the bag-wig was steadily ousting more elaborate types
of coiffure. The turned back cuffs, frequently of contrasting
colour to that of the coat, were cut in "pagoda" fashion,
that is to say, narrow at the wrist and expanding sharply along
the forearm. The name is a sufficient indication of the slight
Oriental influence which made itself felt throughout the eighteenth
century, not, however, so much affecting the shape of clothes
as their colour, material, and decoration.

In France about 1730 men began to fasten their
breeches at the knee over the stockings, but the older mode persisted
among Englishmen for some years longer. The winter of 1719 was
one of exceptional severity, and fine gentlemen, finding their
thin stockings an insufficient protection against the cold, wore
for a few months a kind of military gaiter. Men of the lower
classes, with their grey or black woollen stockings, were better
protected and had no need to adopt this short-lived fashion.

The fashion of leaving the waistcoat open
in front in order to display the linen has been already mentioned.
The custom reached its extreme in the early thirties. Sometimes,
about a foot of frilled shirt was shown - a fashion to which
the modern dress shirt and low-cut waistcoat can be ultimately
traced. Women's riding-habits affected, as so often, a masculine
mode, the waistcoat being shorter but of the same pattern, and
the hat smaller but similar in shape to those worn by men.

Men's pockets were very ample and the folds
of the long coat made it possible to carry comparatively bulky
objects in them without spoiling their shape. Some fashionable
gentlemen would carry a whole battery of snuff-boxes in the skirts
of their coats.